He halted beside a fallen log and mopped his face with his handkerchief. His leg hurt and the log looked inviting; he sat down. Every rich green vista was starting to look the same, but didn’t that line of pine trees forty feet dead ahead have a familiar shape? He remembered trailing behind Carrie toward a thick barrier of trees just like that. She’d stopped in front of it and made him close his eyes. If he was right, her secret glade was just beyond those trees.
And she’d better damn well be there, because if she wasn’t he was going to feel even stupider than he did now. Not to mention disappointed.
He was aware that he wasn’t behaving like a man trying to discourage an innocent girl’s unrequited crush. He’d told himself he was only visiting Carrie so soon after their last meeting so that he could give her a present—his old army field glasses. But the truth of the matter was, he wanted to see her.
See her. Not touch her. Touching her was dangerous and irresponsible. It dismayed him that on two separate occasions he’d kissed her without intending to, and that the last time he’d come close to not stopping with kissing. It wasn’t fair to Carrie, and he cared for her too much to hurt her by raising unrealistic hopes. It was past time to recall that he was a responsible, professional adult, not an undisciplined boy. He was calling on Carrie today—if he ever found her—for only two reasons: to give her a gift, and to let her know that Dr. Peterson had set a date for a consultation.
It hadn’t been easy nailing Peterson down. He was a busy, overworked specialist, and it was only after several letters and a bullying telephone call that Tyler had convinced him he had time to examine a mute country girl whose problem might not even be physical.
Getting to his feet, he stuffed his handkerchief in his pocket and hefted his field glasses back onto his shoulder. The longer he stared at the pine trees in the distance, the surer he grew that they marked the secret boundary line of Carrie’s hospital. If she were there, she’d be tending to her flowers, or maybe one of her wounded wildlings. She would smile her enchanting smile when she saw him, and write him one of her ingenuous notes. He’d ask for a drink, and she’d bring him an icy-cold glass of water from the stream he’d heard but not yet seen. The binoculars would amaze her; she’d try them out immediately, and she’d be overcome with gratitude to him for giving them to her.
He was counting on that. His conscience didn’t bother him a bit that the field glasses were as much a bribe as they were a gift. She was afraid of something, but he wasn’t going to be put off this time by her odd, incoherent excuses. One way or the other, Carrie was going with him to Baltimore to see Dr. Peterson.
The woodchuck was still peering at her. Beady-eyed, flat head resting on his forepaws on top of the big boulder. Unblinking, perfectly still. The scratching of Carrie’s pencil and her occasional sighs didn’t bother him. She’d already sketched him twice; it was time to get out of the hammock and feed the rabbits. But she delayed, knowing he would disappear as soon as she moved, and she liked his company. She liked looking at his little round ears, his bushy tail, and his tiny black feet. Farmers down in the valley killed groundhogs, as they called them, every chance they got. You‘re lucky you live up here on Dreamy, she told her silent, staring friend.
High overhead in the dark spruce tree, a bird called. You again, Carrie thought, with more than a touch of frustration. For weeks she’d been trying to identify the bird, but he kept eluding her; try as she might, all she could ever seem to see of him was a flash of red feathers. He sounded like a robin with a sore throat, but she’d narrowed him down to either a scarlet tanager or a summer tanager. She was tempted to get up and try for another look now through the branches—but of course, if she did, her woodchuck would desert her.
Before he’d come, she’d been writing in her journal. Reading over the last page, she could feel herself smiling and her cheeks getting warm all over again with self-conscious pleasure. “And then he kissed me on my forehead,” she’d written, “and all that sadness in me flew away like a startled bird. We stood together so still and quiet, and I didn’t know what he was thinking. He has eyes like wild hyacinths, and his lips are strong and firm—but so warm! And then—then—he kissed my mouth. I thought my heart would burst out of my chest, it felt so full. I don’t have any words to say what it was like when he touched me, but it’s a memory I will keep forever. And afterward he said he wasn’t sorry. And he said my hospital is ‘magical.’ He likes me, I know it, and I will love Tyler Wilkes until I die.”
Carrie closed her eyes and pressed the open journal to her chest, as if she could press the words into her heart. “Always,” she vowed, feeling the love swell and rise like bread, until she couldn’t contain any more. Tears wet her lashes, and she laughed and called herself a spoony goose. How could she cry when she was overflowing with happiness? For two whole days she had lived in a spell, lit up from the inside like a flame in a lantern. Could this be how other people felt all the time? No, of course it couldn’t be. This was rare, special, and if everybody went around feeling the way she did right now, they’d never have time to be mean or sad or scared. Besides, there wasn’t anybody else in the world like Dr. Wilkes (even though they’d kissed, she couldn’t quite call him Tyler yet), so even people lucky enough to be in love with someone weren’t in love with him. Which meant they couldn’t be as happy as she was. Poor people!
She sat up suddenly, bubbling over with energy—and the woodchuck shot straight up in the air. In a scrambling rush, toenails skittering on the slippery rock, he vanished. “Oh, excuse me—!” But then she had to laugh because he looked so funny. And he’d come back another day.
She got up from the hammock and stored her journal away. She’d brought two biscuits, an apple, and a carrot for her hospital’s newest residents: five baby rabbits. They could feed themselves now, thank goodness; giving them infant cereal every three hours yesterday and the day before had worn her out. Eppy had rescued them from her two oldest daughters, who’d found the nest in an empty lot and couldn’t resist poking and playing with the babies until the mother rabbit disappeared and never came back.
Carrie kept them in an old bird cage when she was here, and in a box with a window screen and a rock on top when she was absent. Four inches long, that’s how big they should be, she reckoned, before she could let them go. Sitting down on the dry moss, she reached through the bird cage door and lifted the littlest baby out carefully—jumping escapes were easy for them but a nuisance for her when she had to track them down and put them back. Holding the squirmy brownish ball on the flat of her palm, she judged him to be about three and a half inches from his twitching pink nose to his white cottontail. Not much longer now, she told him, stroking between his petal-soft ears with her fingertip. Sylvilagus floridanus was his Latin name. In about two more days, she’d set him free. Not here, though—in the meadow by the bridge at the bottom of the mountain, because the hedgerows there would be much better for foraging than here in the dark woods.
Back you go. But she kept her hand in the cage so she could pet the others. Oh, you like my biscuits, do you? Well, I made them just for you—don’t tell Artemis. She was surprised to hear herself laugh—even thinking about her stepfather couldn’t spoil her happiness today.
Would Dr. Wilkes like to see the rabbits before she let them go? she wondered. Maybe. But he was so busy, it wasn’t likely he’d be coming up the mountain for a visit in time. Well—what if she took them to him? To his house some evening, when he was through with his work. Would he like that? She stared off into space, imagining it. He’d invite her into his kitchen and make her a cup of tea, like he had that night after Shadow died. They’d sit at the table and he’d talk to her, say things to make her laugh, and she’d write him a note telling him all about the rabbits. Maybe he’d walk her to the foot of the mountain when it started to get dark, and they could set the babies free together.
Carrie hugged herself, letting the wild delight surge through her again. She could remember, just barely,
feeling this way as a child when something wonderful would happen—Christmas morning, or the time her father had said she could keep the calico kitten. Sheer happiness, absolute perfection. Now, for the first time in years, she thought of a song her mother used to sing. How did it go? It wasn’t a hymn but it sounded like one, the tune slow and stately and almost sad, which made the joyful message all the sweeter.
“Sing out, oh my heart, all the love deep inside, like a lark raise your voice to the sky. Let delight fill you up till a drop overfills you, set the joy in you free and let it fly.”
How her mother had loved to sing. And she’d had the prettiest voice, bright and clear and full of laughter. Not rusty like Carrie’s. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Sing out, oh my heart, all the love deep inside …”
She stopped, caught her breath. The skin on the back of her neck went prickly hot, then cold. Oh God. Someone was here. But she couldn’t move, couldn’t make herself turn her head to see who it was. Please, please, please, don’t let it be him, she pleaded in terror.
“Carrie? My God—Carrie?”
Dr. Wilkes! Clumsy with panic, she scrambled to her feet and whirled around to face him. He moved slowly but steadily toward her across the clearing, shock in his eyes, one hand stretched out in a baffled, questioning gesture. Oh God, help me! she thought, in a daze of fear and shame. The rock shelf was at her back. She slid sideways, step for step with him, stealing toward the corner so she could run. He must’ve seen her plan in her face, for at the moment she reached the edge he lunged for her. She cried out, even though his grip on her arm wasn’t painful. He said something—she hardly knew what, but she heard in his voice that he was bewildered, not angry. The message that she was safe almost penetrated the fog of fright blanketing her mind. But she squirmed and twisted and tried to run again, and this time he caught her hard by her elbows and didn’t let go.
“Talk to me, Carrie. Talk to me, explain this to me. Hold still—damn it—I’m not letting you go.”
She finally stopped struggling. But after that, for the life of her, all she could do was shake her head.
It made him mad. “Damnation, Carrie, I heard you. What the hell is going on?”
She started to cry. If she kept on shaking her head, there was no telling what he might do. So at last she said something—“Dr Wilkes!”—in a hopeless, desperate whisper. The first words she’d spoken to a human being in five years.
His fingers softened on her arms. “Tell me,” he said soberly. “Trust me.”
She nodded, I do.
“I know you’re afraid of something.”
She shook her head violently; without thinking, she fumbled in her pocket for her notebook.
“No, talk to me, tell me why you’ve been pretending. Who else knows you can speak? How long has it been going on, Carrie?”
She couldn’t tell him anything, of course. She wriggled out of his grip and took a step back.
“No, by God, you’re not running away this time.” He caught her wrist and held it too tight. Now he was angry, and she wanted to die. “You’re going to stand there and explain it to me, all of it.”
“No, I’m not.” She barely murmured the words, meant nothing defiant by them, but her answer made him even angrier. “Don’t be mad,” she whispered. “I couldn’t stand it.”
“Don’t be mad?” His voice made her quail. “What should I be, happy for you? Thrilled because apparently you’ve been playing a nasty little game with the people who care about you?” He gave her wrist a rough shake. “Just tell me why. Did you want us to feel sorry for you? Was it some twisted way to get attention, make people—”
“Yes,” she croaked, seizing on it. “Attention. People noticing me.”
It was his idea, but now he didn’t seem to like it. “No, that’s not it. I don’t believe you.”
“Yes. Pity—it’s close to love,” she said wildly.
“No. No, you’re lying.”
“It’s true, don’t you see? I was so lonesome.”
“Carrie, for God’s sake, tell me the truth. Is that all it was? Because you were lonely?”
She nodded.
“Talk to me!”
“Yes! And you were nice to me, so it worked. Please—couldn’t you forgive me?” She couldn’t look at him; she could scarcely speak past the misery in her throat. But through her tears she finally saw his face harden, go from disbelief to dislike, and she knew she’d convinced him.
He let go of her wrist, and this time he was the one who took a step back. He was looking at her as if he’d never seen her before, and the cold disapproval in his eyes made her feel naked and dirty. “Well.” There was a long, awful pause. “You’re right—it worked. If you’re telling me the truth, you must be pleased with yourself, Carrie, because you got what you wanted. I didn’t feel sorry for you before, but now I do.” He took something that hung on a strap from his shoulder and laid it on the ground at her feet.
“Wait!” she cried when he turned away.
“Well?”
“If you would—oh please, if you …” How to ask? She twisted her fingers until they hurt.
“What is it you want?” he snapped.
“Don’t tell anyone about me. I’m begging you.”
He didn’t answer; he just stared at her until it was hurtful to look at him any longer. She dropped her head and didn’t look up until she knew from the dreadful silence that he was gone.
10
“HE’S NOT HERE. CAN’T you read? Didn’t you see the sign downstairs?”
Yes, she’d seen it, a framed slate hanging on his office door: “Dr. Wilkes will return at__.” Nobody had filled in the blank. Carrie found her notebook and scribbled, When will he be back?
Mrs. Quick squinted her eyes in that distrustful but fascinated way some people took with Carrie because she couldn’t talk. “Well, I’m sure I can’t say. He got called away on an emergency.” She pursed her lips, enjoying herself because she knew where Dr. Wilkes was and Carrie didn’t; but before long she couldn’t stand it, she had to gossip. “If you want to know, Emma Rindge’s boy come galloping up an hour ago, yelling about his poor mama’s appendicitis. “Appendicitis,” she scoffed. “Anybody knows Emma’s eight months gone if she’s a day, and nobody was there since old Rindge passed on except that Italian farmhand she hired to help out. Farmhand.”
She put her hands on her hips when Carrie kept her face a blank and didn’t look interested. “What do you want with Dr. Wilkes anyway? Are you sick?”
Yes, she thought, I’m sick inside, my heart’s shriveled up to nothing. She slipped the heavy leather case from her shoulder and handed it to the housekeeper.
“What’s this?”
She wrote in her notebook, Please give it to him.
“What is it?”
After a long, motionless moment, while anger and grieving coiled inside her like garter snakes, she made herself write, Binocyulers; crossed it out, wrote, Binoculers. That wasn’t right either. She thrust the paper at Mrs. Quick, embarrassed and defiant.
“Well, I can see that. What’re you giving ’em to him for?”
Now, that was too much. Carrie made a sharp gesture with the flat of her palm and turned away, clattering down the wooden porch steps in her noisy shoes. Mrs. Quick hollered something after her, but she pretended not to hear. She wanted to stop and put the violets in her pocket on Shadow’s grave, but Mrs. Quick would be watching and Carrie didn’t feel like having anybody look at her right now. She went around the side of Dr. Wilkes’s office and hurried up the half block toward Broad Street.
Mondays were quiet in Wayne’s Crossing, which was why she always made it her shopping day. There weren’t as many people on the streets and in the stores to look at her and speculate on her. Feel sorry for her. She blew her nose, amazed that she could still have any tears left after two days of doing hardly anything else except shed them. She couldn’t help it, though; that Dr. Wilkes thought so badly of her that he believed she wa
nted people to feel sorry for her broke her heart whenever she thought of it. She’d lost her love, her dearest friend, and she couldn’t seem to do anything about it but weep. But she put her handkerchief back in her purse and squared her shoulders, because she wasn’t going to walk down Broad Street in the middle of the day with tears streaming down her face. People who already thought she was a little queer would decide she was completely crazy, and she didn’t need any more of the kind of attention she already attracted.
“Hey, Carrie.”
She looked beyond the cross street to see Eugene Starkey coming out of the drugstore with Teenie Yingling. Eugene grinned, showing the toothpick he had clamped between his big teeth, and waved to her. She waved back. He stood still, as if he was waiting for her to catch up, and she quickened her step. Teenie gave his hand a yank and said something in his ear. Just then the ice wagon turned off Broad onto Truitt, cutting off Carrie’s view. When it passed, Eugene and Teenie had turned their backs on her and were walking away fast.
She was used to being snubbed, especially by girls, but that didn’t make it sting less when it happened. She didn’t want to talk to Eugene anyway, but it annoyed her that he liked to flaunt Teenie or some other girl in front of her every chance he could, trying to make her jealous. She wasn’t jealous, but sometimes he could make her feel sadder and lonelier by showing off how much fun he was having with one of his girlfriends. She thought of the night he’d kissed her and told her she was pretty. He’d been drinking, of course, but that didn’t explain everything. It was hard to say whether Eugene liked her or hated her, and sometimes Carrie didn’t think he knew which it was himself.
She’d left Petey and the wagon in front of Eppy’s house while she did her errands. As she turned the corner onto the Odells’ quiet street, a familiar bobbing figure caught her eye. Going closer, she recognized Broom, bent double over an enormous trash can beside the curb. She knew what he was doing as soon as she saw the pile of tin cans on the ground at his feet.
Sweet Everlasting Page 12
